1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to supply chain management and product offering conditioning and, more particularly, to identifying alternative products or substituting components that can be provided to customers in reaction to supply imbalances.
2. Background Description
Supply-Demand conditioning is a decision process within the supply-demand planning process that monitors imbalances between supply and demand and recommends corrective actions before an imbalance becomes a threat to customer service. To resolve an imbalance situation, the decision maker needs to choose the appropriate corrective action. These actions fall into three categories:                Supply conditioning: Working with suppliers to improve flexibility in supply to react to customer demand that is never totally predictable.        Demand conditioning: Providing dynamic sales plans that can be changed in reaction to supply imbalances. Considers pricing actions and promotions to provide incentives to customers to choose alternatives.        Product offering conditioning: Identifying alternative product configurations in reaction to supply imbalances. Supported by a proactive product definition phase that provides more flexibility to define product configurations.        